Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Evolution of Las Vegas

In the pre-historic times southern Nevada was a swampy marsh and covered with vegetation. Rafael Rivera became the first non-Indian to set foot into Las Vegas valley in 1830.

Las Vegas was earlier known as Vegas. Las Vegas means “meadows” in Spanish.

Around the time of the World War II Las Vegas started growing into a major resort town. The building boom triggered by the El Rancho Vegas hotel casino in the late 1940. The casino was a major success during that period. Several hotels and casinos on the two-lane highway between Los Angles and Las Vegas started coming up.

In 1950 a building boom swept Las Vegas and resort building accelerated. In 1955 the Rivera hotel became the first strip high rise. Racism was much prevalent in many part of the city and blacks were not welcomed at the strip casinos. The Moulin rouge, owned by heavy weight champion Joe Louis was frequented by all races and was especially built for the black population who were becoming sizeable chunk of the population.

posted by Diane @ 9:29 AM